Roles of RNA m5C modification patterns in prognosis and tumor microenvironment infiltration of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma.

Genetic and epigenetic aberrations display an essential role in the initiation and progression of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL). 5-methylcytosine (m5C), a common RNA modification, regulates various cellular processes and contributes to tumorigenesis and cancer progression. However, m5C alterations in DLBCL remain unclear. Our research constructed an m5C prognostic model utilizing GEO data sets, which can efficiently predict the prognosis of patients with DLBCL, and verified the m5C prognostic model genes by immunohistochemistry analysis. This model was constructed using unsupervised consensus clustering analyses, Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator (LASSO), and multivariate Cox regression analyses. Based on the expression of m5C genes in the model, patients with DLBCL could be effectively divided into groups with significant survival time differences. The m5C risk-score signature demonstrated a highly significant independent prognostic value. Results from tumor microenvironment analyses revealed that m5C genes altered the infiltration of eosinophils, Tregs, and M2 macrophages. Additionally, they regulated T cell activation by modulating the expression of CTLA4, PDL1, B2M, CD8A, ICOS, and other relevant immune checkpoint expressions. In conclusion, our study presents a robust m5C prognostic model that effectively predicts prognosis in DLBCL. This model may offer a new approach for prognostic stratification and potential therapeutic interventions for patients with DLBCL.

Protective Mechanism of Polysaccharide ORP-1 Isolated from Oudemansiella raphanipes against Age-Related Cognitive Decline through the Microbiota-Gut-Brain Axis.

Age-related cognitive decline is primarily attributed to the progressive weakening of synaptic function and loss of synapses, while age-related gut microbial dysbiosis is known to impair synaptic plasticity and cognitive behavior by metabolic alterations. To improve the health of the elderly, the protective mechanisms of Oudemansiella raphanipes polysaccharide (ORP-1) against age-related cognitive decline are investigated. The results demonstrate that ORP-1 and its gut microbiota-derived metabolites SCFAs restore a healthy gut microbial population to handle age-related gut microbiota dysbiosis mainly by increasing the abundance of beneficial bacteria Dubosiella, Clostridiales, and Prevotellaceae and reducing the abundance of harmful bacteria Desulfovibrio, strengthen intestinal barrier integrity by abolishing age-related alterations of tight junction (TJ) and mucin 2 (MUC2) proteins expression, diminish age-dependent increase in circulating inflammatory factors, ameliorate cognitive decline by reversing memory- and synaptic plasticity-related proteins levels, and restrain hyperactivation of microglia-mediated synapse engulfment and neuroinflammation. These findings expand the understanding of prebiotic-microbiota-host interactions.

Interactive impacts of CO2-induced seawater acidification and cadmium exposure on antioxidant defenses of juvenile tongue sole Cynoglossus semilaevis.

Antioxidant responses of juvenile sole exposed to seawater acidification (SA) and Cd were investigated. SA increased lipid peroxidation (LPO) in the fish, independent of Cd concentrations. Cd at medium and high levels inflated LPO under no or moderate SA conditions. This effect was absent under high SA levels, due to SA effect exceeding and obscuring Cd effect. SA and Cd collaborated to provoke LPO, with SOD and CAT being stimulated to defend against oxidative stress, while those related to GSH redox cycle were inhibited under SA exposure. Responses of GSH-related antioxidants to Cd impact varied contingent on their interactions with SA. This defensive strategy was insufficient to protect fish from increased LPO. Antioxidants responded more sensitively to SA than Cd exposure. GSH, GR, SOD and CAT are sensitive biomarkers for SA conditions. The findings offer insights into assessing fish's antioxidant defense strategy under Cd and SA circumstances in natural habitats.

Influencing factors for residual kidney function in incident peritoneal dialysis patients: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: Residual kidney function (RKF) impacts patients' survival rate and quality of life when undergoing peritoneal dialysis (PD). This meta-analysis was conducted to systematically identify risk and protective factors associated with RKF decline and loss. METHODS: We searched three English and one Chinese databases from inception to January 31, 2023, for cohort and cross-sectional studies exploring factors associated with RKF decline or loss. The random effects model was employed to aggregate risk estimates and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) from multivariate analysis. Sensitivity and subgroup analyses were performed to explore the heterogeneity among the studies. RESULTS: Twenty-seven studies comprising 13549 individuals and 14 factors were included in the meta-analysis. Based on the meta-analysis results, risk factors involving male gender (hazard ratio (HR) 1.689, 95%CI 1.385-2.061), greater body mass index (BMI) (odds ratio (OR) 1.081, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.029-1.135), higher systolic blood pressure (SBP) (HR 1.014, 95%CI 1.005-1.024), diabetes mellitus (DM) (HRRKF loss 1.873, 95%CI 1.475-2.378), DM (ORRKF decline 1.906, 95%CI 1.262-2.879), peritonitis (relative ratio (RR) 2.291, 95%CI 1.633-3.213), proteinuria (OR 1.223, 95%CI 1.117-1.338), and elevated serum phosphorus (RR 2.655, 95%CI 1.679-4.201) significantly contributed to the risk of RKF decline and loss in PD patients. Conversely, older age (HR 0.968, 95%CI 0.956-0.981), higher serum albumin (OR 0.834, 95%CI 0.720-0.966), weekly Kt/V urea (HR 0.414, 95%CI 0.248-0.690), baseline urine volume (UV) (HR 0.791, 95%CI 0.639-0.979), baseline RKF (HR 0.795, 95%CI 0.739-0.857) exhibited protective effects. However, diuretics use, automatic peritoneal dialysis (APD) modality and baseline RKF did not significantly impact RKF decline. CONCLUSIONS: Patients with male gender, greater BMI, higher SBP, DM, peritonitis, proteinuria, and elevated serum phosphorus might have a higher risk of RKF decline and loss. In contrast, older age, higher serum albumin, weekly Kt/V urea, baseline UV, and baseline RKF might protect against RKF deterioration.

Hunter: Exploring High-Order Consistency for Point Cloud Registration With Severe Outliers.

After decades of investigation, point cloud registration is still a challenging task in practice, especially when the correspondences are contaminated by a large number of outliers. It may result in a rapidly decreasing probability of generating a hypothesis close to the true transformation, leading to the failure of point cloud registration. To tackle this problem, we propose a transformation estimation method, named Hunter, for robust point cloud registration with severe outliers. The core of Hunter is to design a global-to-local exploration scheme to robustly find the correct correspondences. The global exploration aims to exploit guided sampling to generate promising initial alignments. To this end, a hypergraph-based consistency reasoning module is introduced to learn the high-order consistency among correct correspondences, which is able to yield a more distinct inlier cluster that facilitates the generation of all-inlier hypotheses. Moreover, we propose a preference-based local exploration module that exploits the preference information of top- k promising hypotheses to find a better transformation. This module can efficiently obtain multiple reliable transformation hypotheses by using a multi-initialization searching strategy. Finally, we present a distance-angle based hypothesis selection criterion to choose the most reliable transformation, which can avoid selecting symmetrically aligned false transformations. Experimental results on simulated, indoor, and outdoor datasets, demonstrate that Hunter can achieve significant superiority over the state-of-the-art methods, including both learning-based and traditional methods (as shown in Fig. 1). Moreover, experimental results also indicate that Hunter can achieve more stable performance compared with all other methods with severe outliers.

Calculated inflammatory markers derived from complete blood count results, along with routine laboratory and clinical data, predict treatment failure of acute peritonitis in chronic peritoneal dialysis patients.

BACKGROUND & AIMS: Complete blood count (CBC)-derived inflammatory markers are predictive biomarkers for the prognosis of many diseases. However, there was no study on patients with peritoneal dialysis-associated peritonitis (PDAP). We aimed to investigate the value of these markers in predicting treatment failure of acute peritonitis in chronic PD patients. METHODS: The records of 138 peritonitis episodes were reviewed and divided into treatment success or failure groups in a single center for 10 years. CBC-derived markers and other routine data were recorded before peritonitis treatment was initiated. Univariate and multivariate regression analyses and the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve about the predictors of treatment outcomes were performed. RESULTS: Neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR), monocyte-to-lymphocyte ratio (MLR), systemic immune-inflammation index (SII), and derived NLR were significantly higher in the failure group. Univariate logistic regression results showed that NLR and PLR were risk factors of treatment outcomes. The backward stepwise multivariate logistic regression results demonstrated that NLR [adjusted odds ratio (aOR), 1.376; 95% confidence intervals (CI), 1.105-1.713; p = .004], PLR (aOR, 1.010; 95%CI, 1.004-1.017; p = .002) were risk factors, but hemoglobin-to-lymphocyte ratio (HLR) (aOR, 0.977; 95%CI, 0.963-0.991; p = .001), and SII (aOR, 0.999; 95%CI, 0.998-1.000; p = .040) were protective factors. A combination of age, PD vintage, Gram-positive peritonitis, staphylococcus aureus, culture-negative, NLR, PLR, HLR, and SII would improve prognostic performance. The area under this ROC curve was 0.85, higher than other factors. CONCLUSIONS: NLR, PLR, HLR, and SII were associated with PDAP outcomes. Age, PD vintage, NLR, and PLR were significant risk factors in PDAP patients.

Effect of national holidays on health outcomes of patients receiving peritoneal dialysis in a single center over a ten-year period.

BACKGROUND: National holidays are associated with high mortality in some diseases, but little is known about patients undergoing peritoneal dialysis (PD). The research aimed to investigate the impact of national holidays on the health outcomes of PD patients. METHODS: Over ten years, all episodes of unplanned hospitalization, death, and peritonitis in PD patients were collected in our center. Seven national holidays in China were chosen, and non-holiday days were selected as the control period. The effect of national holidays was observed by comparing the hospitalization, death, and peritonitis rates between holiday and non-holiday groups. RESULTS: There were 297 events in all holiday periods and 1247 in non-holiday periods. There is no significant difference in hospitalization rate between holiday and non-holiday groups (32.4% ± 6.4% vs. 29.2% ± 3.4%, p = 0.175). So is the death rate [6.3% (4.8-12.3%) vs.5.0% (4.2-8.9%), p = 0.324] and peritonitis rate [0.19 (0.13-0.53) vs. 0.22 (0.18-0.27), p = 0.445] between the two groups. Significant differences were observed in the distribution of peritonitis causes between the two groups (p = 0.017). The rate of secondary to other infections in the holiday group was significantly higher than in the non-holiday group (25.0 vs. 10.3%, p = 0.015). CONCLUSION: Our study suggested no national holiday effect on health outcomes of PD patients based on ten-year data in our center.

Oncological results in women with wound complications following mastectomy and immediate breast reconstruction: A meta-analysis.

We performed a meta-analysis to evaluate the oncological results in women with wound complications following mastectomy and immediate breast reconstruction. A systematic literature search up to August 2022 was performed and 1618 subjects with mastectomy and immediate breast reconstruction at the baseline of the studies; 443 of them were with wound complications, and 1175 were with no wound complications as a control. Odds ratio (OR) and mean difference (MD) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated to assess the oncological results in women with wound complications following mastectomy and immediate breast reconstruction using dichotomous or contentious methods with a random or fixed-effect model. The wound complications had a significantly longer length of time to adjuvant therapy (MD, 9.44; 95% CI, 4.07-14.82, P < .001) compared with no wound complications in subjects with mastectomy and immediate breast reconstruction. However, no significant difference was found between wound complications and no wound complications in subjects with mastectomy and immediate breast reconstruction in breast cancer recurrence (OR, 1.96; 95% CI, 0.95-4.06, P = .07), death rates (OR, 1.95; 95% CI, 0.89-4.27, P = .09), and kind of immediate breast reconstruction (OR, 1.01; 95% CI, 0.53-1.92, P = .98). The wound complications had a significantly longer length of time to adjuvant, however, no significant difference was found in breast cancer recurrence, death rates, and kind of immediate breast reconstruction. The analysis of outcomes should be done with caution even though no low sample size was found in the meta-analysis but a low number of studies was found in certain comparisons.

pCO2-driven seawater acidification affects aqueous-phase copper toxicity in juvenile flounder Paralichthys olivaceus: Metal accumulation, antioxidant defenses and detoxification in livers.

Ocean acidification potentially influences the biotoxicity of metals and the antioxidant defense systems of marine organisms. This study investigated how pCO2-driven seawater acidification (SA) affected aqueous-phase copper (Cu) toxicity in the juvenile flounder Paralichthys olivaceus from the perspective of hepatic oxidative stress and damage to better understand the mechanisms underlying the biological effects produced by the two stressors. Fish were exposed to aqueous-phase Cu at relevant ambient and polluted concentrations (0, 5, 10, 50, 100 and 200 µg L-1) at different pH levels (no SA: pH 8.10; moderate SA: pH 7.70, pCO2 ∼1353.89 µatm; extreme SA: pH 7.30, pCO2 ∼3471.27 µatm) for 28 days. A battery of biomarkers in the livers was examined to investigate their roles in antioxidant defense and detoxification in response to coexposure. Hepatic Cu accumulation (30.22-184.90 mg kg-1) was positively correlated with Cu concentrations. The biomarkers responded adaptively to different redox states following SA and Cu exposure. In unacidified seawater, increases in Cu concentrations significantly induced hepatic lipid peroxidation (LPO, by up to 27.03 %), although compensatory responses in antioxidant defenses and detoxification were activated. Moderate SA helped maintain hepatic redox homeostasis and alleviated LPO through different defense strategies, depending on Cu concentrations. Under extreme SA, antioxidant-based defenses were activated to cope with oxidative stress at ambient-low Cu concentrations but failed to defend against Cu toxicity at polluted Cu levels, and LPO (by up to 63.90 %) was significantly induced. Additionally, thiols (GSH and MT) responded actively to cope with Cu toxicity under SA. SOD, CAT, EROD, and GST were also sensitively involved in defending against hepatic oxidative stress during coexposure. These findings highlight the notable interactive effects of SA and Cu and provide a basis for understanding antioxidant-based defenses in marine fish confronting environmental challenges.

Development and validation of an extended Cox prognostic model for patients with ER/PR+ and HER2- breast cancer: a retrospective cohort study.

BACKGROUND: The purpose of this study was to explore a new estrogen receptor (ER) and/or progesterone receptor (PR)+ and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)- breast cancer prognostic model, called the extended Cox prognostic model, for determining the cutoff values for multiple continuous prognostic factors and their interaction via the new model concept and variable selection method. METHODS: A total of 335 patients with ER/PR+ and HER2- breast cancer were enrolled for the final analysis. The primary endpoint was breast cancer-specific mortality (BCSM). Prognostic factors (histological grade, histological type, stage, T, N, lymphovascular invasion (LVI), P53, Ki67, ER, PR, and age) were included in this study. The four continuous variables (Ki67, ER, PR, and age) were partitioned into a series of binary variables that were fitted in the multivariate Cox analysis. A smoothly clipped absolute deviation (SCAD) variable selection method was used. Model performance was expressed in discrimination and calibration. RESULTS: We developed an extended Cox model with a time threshold of 164-week (more than 3 years) postoperation and developed a user-friendly nomogram based on our extended Cox model to facilitate clinical application. We found that the cutoff values for PR, Ki67, and age were 20%, 60%, and 41-55 years, respectively. There was an interaction between age and PR for patients aged ≥ 41 years and PR ≥ 20% at 164-week postoperation: the older the patients with ER/PR+, HER2-, and PR ≥ 20% were, the lower the survival and more likely to recur and metastasize exceeding 164 weeks (more than 3 years) after surgery. CONCLUSIONS: Our study offers guidance on the prognosis of patients with ER/PR+ and HER2- breast cancer in China. The new concept can inform modeling and the determination of cutoff values of prognostic factors in the future.

LDVoxelMorph: A precise loss function and cascaded architecture for unsupervised diffeomorphic large displacement registration.

PURPOSE: The traditional learning-based non-rigid registration methods for medical images are trained by an invariant smoothness regularization parameter, which cannot satisfy the registration accuracy and diffeomorphic property simultaneously. The diffeomorphic property reflects the credibility of the registration results. METHOD: To improve the diffeomorphic property in 3D medical image registration, we propose a diffeomorphic cascaded network based on the compressed loss (CL), named LDVoxelMorph. The proposed network has several constituent U-Nets and is trained with deep supervision, which uses a different spatial smoothness regularization parameter in each constituent U-Nets for training. This cascade-variant smoothness regularization parameter can maintain the diffeomorphic property in top cascades with large displacement and achieve precise registration in bottom cascades. Besides, we develop the CL as a penalty for the velocity field, which can accurately limit the velocity field that causes the deformation field overlap after the velocity field integration. RESULTS: In our registration experiments, the dice scores of our method were 0.892 ± 0.040 on liver CT datasets SLIVER37 , 0.848 ± 0.044 on liver CT datasets LiTS38 , 0.689 ± 0.014 on brain MRI datasets LPBA38 , and the number of overlapping voxels of deformation field were 325, 159, and 0, respectively. Ablation study shows that the CL improves the diffeomorphic property more effectively than increases. CONCLUSION: Experiment results show that our method can achieve higher registration accuracy assessed by dice scores and overlapping voxels while maintaining the diffeomorphic property for large deformation.

RGB-D Point Cloud Registration Based on Salient Object Detection.

We propose a robust algorithm for aligning rigid, noisy, and partially overlapping red green blue-depth (RGB-D) point clouds. To address the problems of data degradation and uneven distribution, we offer three strategies to increase the robustness of the iterative closest point (ICP) algorithm. First, we introduce a salient object detection (SOD) method to extract a set of points with significant structural variation in the foreground, which can avoid the unbalanced proportion of foreground and background point sets leading to the local registration. Second, registration algorithms that rely only on structural information for alignment cannot establish the correct correspondences when faced with the point set with no significant change in structure. Therefore, a bidirectional color distance (BCD) is designed to build precise correspondence with bidirectional search and color guidance. Third, the maximum correntropy criterion (MCC) and trimmed strategy are introduced into our algorithm to handle with noise and outliers. We experimentally validate that our algorithm is more robust than previous algorithms on simulated and real-world scene data in most scenarios and achieve a satisfying 3-D reconstruction of indoor scenes.

Toxicological effects of cadmium on the immune response and biomineralization of larval flounder Paralichthys olivaceus under seawater acidification.

Seawater acidification can cause threats to both calcifying and uncalcifying marine organisms, affecting their acid-base regulatory functions, immune system and biomineralization. Marine pollutants, such as cadmium (Cd) that is globally distributed in coastal ecosystems, do not affect organisms alone but commonly as combined stressors. To investigate the toxicological effects of Cd on the immune and biomineralization of marine fishes under seawater acidification, flounder Paralichthys olivaceus was exposed to seawater acidification (control (pH 8.10), 7.70 and 7.30) and Cd exposure (control (0.36 µg L-1), 0.01 and 0.15 mg L-1 Cd) for 49 days from embryonic stage until they became settled. Immune and biomineralization-related biomarkers of flounder at the end of exposure were investigated. Results showed that single seawater acidification and Cd exposure or combined exposure significantly affected the immune system-related enzyme activities. Specifically, lysozyme (LZM) activity was significantly inhibited by single seawater acidification and Cd exposure, indicating innate immunosuppression under two stressors. Contents of IgM, HSP70 and MT were induced by seawater acidification or Cd exposure, indicating a detoxification mechanism that responded to the stressors. The expressions of immune-related genes were upregulated (hsp70 and mt) or downregulated (lzm) under Cd exposure. Of the biomineralization-related enzymes, activities of carbonic anhydrase (CA), Na+/K+-ATPase and Ca2+-ATPase increased under seawater acidification and Cd exposure, a potential mechanism in response to changes of acid-base balance induced by the stressors. Generally, immune and biomineralization of the flounder responded more sensitively to Cd exposure than seawater acidification. Seawater acidification aggravated the toxicological effects of Cd exposure on the two physiological functions, while high Cd exposure augmented their responses to seawater acidification.

[Relationships between CASP8, Fas Gene Polymorphisms and the Prognosis of Patients with Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma in Han Nationality].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the relationships between caspase-8 (CASP8), fatty acid synthetase (Fas) gene polymorphisms and prognosis of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma patients in Han nationality. METHODS: The clinical data of 85 patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma were analyzed retrospectively. The polymorphisms of CASP8 and Fas gene were detected, and prognosis of the patients were analyzed. The polymorphisms of CASP8 and Fas gene in patients with different prognosis were compared, and the relationships between gene polymorphisms and the poor prognosis of the patients were investigated. RESULTS: The incidence rate of poor prognosis of the patients enrolled in the study was 65.88%. The polymorphisms of CASP8 and Fas genes in the patients with poor or good prognosis were in accordance with Hardy Weinberg's law of genetic balance. The frequencies of GG genotype and G allele at rs 1035142 of CASP8 gene, GA genotype and A allele at rs 1377 of Fas gene in patients with poor prognosis were lower than those of the patients with good prognosis (P<0.05). The frequencies of GT, TT and T alleles at rs 1035142 of CASP8 gene, GG and G alleles at rs 1377 of Fas gene in patients with poor prognosis were higher than those of the patients with good prognosis (P<0.05). The proportions of Ann Arbor stage III-IV and high malignancy in patients with poor prognosis were higher than those of the patients with good prognosis (P<0.05). Logistic multiple regression analysis showed that Ann Arbor stage III-IV, moderate malignant, high malignancy, CASP8 rs 1035142 GT genotype, CASP8 rs 1035142 TT genotype and Fas rs 1377 GG genotype were all the risk factors for the poor prognosis of the patients (P<0.05). CONCLUSION: The poor prognosis rate of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma patients in Han nationality is relatively high, and the risk factors for the prognosis of the patients include Ann Arbor stage III-IV, moderate and high malignancy, CASP8 rs 1035142 GT genotype, CASP8 rs 1035142 TT genotype and Fas rs 1377 GG genotype.

Three-dimensional superimposition of digital models for individual identification.

Dentition is an individualizing structure in humans that may be potentially utilized in individual identification. However, research on the use of three-dimensional (3D) digital models for personal identification is rare. This study aimed to develop a method for individual identification based on a 3D image registration algorithm and assess its feasibility in practice. Twenty-eight college students were recruited; for each subject, a dental cast and an intraoral scan were taken at different time points, and digital models were acquired. The digital models of the dental casts and intraoral scans were assumed as antemortem and postmortem dentition, respectively. Additional 72 dental casts were extracted from a hospital database as a suspect pool together with 28 antemortem models. The dentition images of all of the models were extracted. Correntropy was introduced into the traditional iterative closest point algorithm to compare each postmortem 3D dentition with 3D dentitions in the suspect pool. Point-to-point root mean square (RMS) distances were calculated, and then 28 matches and 2772 mismatches were obtained. Statistical analysis was performed using the Mann-Whitney U test, which showed significant differences in RMS between matches (0.18±0.03mm) and mismatches (1.04±0.67mm) (P<0.05). All of the RMS values of the matched models were below 0.27mm. The percentage of accurate identification reached 100% in the present study. These results indicate that this method for individual identification based on 3D superimposition of digital models is effective in personal identification.

Tissue-Specific Accumulation and Antioxidant Defenses in Flounder (Paralichthys olivaceus) Juveniles Experimentally Exposed to Methylmercury.

Methylmercury (MeHg) is the most toxic form of mercury and can accumulate in the cells of marine organisms, such as fish, causing adverse effects on various physiological functions. This study examined MeHg accumulation and its toxicological role in antioxidant defenses in tissues, including the liver, gills, and muscle of flounder (Paralichthys olivaceus) juveniles. After 30 d of MeHg exposure (0, 0.1, 1.0, 10.0, and 20.0 µg L-1), the accumulation of MeHg in the three tissues correlated positively with the concentration of MeHg and exhibited tissue specificity in the order of liver > gills > muscle. Among the antioxidant markers, the activities of SOD (superoxide dismutase) and GST (glutathione S-transferase) as well as the content of glutathione (GSH) in the liver and gills were induced at 0.1-10.0 µg L-1 but repressed at 20.0 µg L-1. The activities of SOD and GST and the content of GSH in the muscle significantly increased with increasing MeHg concentration. Catalase (CAT) activity in the liver was induced at 0.1-1.0 µg L-1 but inhibited at 10.0-20.0 µg L-1, whereas exposure to MeHg did not remarkably affect CAT activity in the gills and muscle. The levels of lipid peroxidation (LPO) increased dose dependently, showing tissue specificity with the highest level in the liver, then the gills, followed by muscles. Overall, higher sensitivity to oxidative stress induced by MeHg was detected in the liver than the gills and muscle. These findings improve our understanding of the tissue-specific accumulation of heavy metals and their roles in antioxidant responses in marine fish subjected to MeHg exposure.

Predicting COVID-19 in China Using Hybrid AI Model.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) breaking out in late December 2019 is gradually being controlled in China, but it is still spreading rapidly in many other countries and regions worldwide. It is urgent to conduct prediction research on the development and spread of the epidemic. In this article, a hybrid artificial-intelligence (AI) model is proposed for COVID-19 prediction. First, as traditional epidemic models treat all individuals with coronavirus as having the same infection rate, an improved susceptible-infected (ISI) model is proposed to estimate the variety of the infection rates for analyzing the transmission laws and development trend. Second, considering the effects of prevention and control measures and the increase of the public's prevention awareness, the natural language processing (NLP) module and the long short-term memory (LSTM) network are embedded into the ISI model to build the hybrid AI model for COVID-19 prediction. The experimental results on the epidemic data of several typical provinces and cities in China show that individuals with coronavirus have a higher infection rate within the third to eighth days after they were infected, which is more in line with the actual transmission laws of the epidemic. Moreover, compared with the traditional epidemic models, the proposed hybrid AI model can significantly reduce the errors of the prediction results and obtain the mean absolute percentage errors (MAPEs) with 0.52%, 0.38%, 0.05%, and 0.86% for the next six days in Wuhan, Beijing, Shanghai, and countrywide, respectively.

Radial augmentation index may be an effective predictor of vascular calcification in patients on peritoneal dialysis.

Vascular calcification (VC) is an important promoter of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in patients undergoing peritoneal dialysis (PD). Several indices can be used to evaluate VC, including the abdominal aortic calcification index (AACI) and carotid artery intima-media thickness (IMT); however, simpler and lesser expensive predictors, such as the radial augmentation index (RAI), should be investigated. A total of 101 patients undergoing PD were recruited to measure RAI, AACI, and carotid artery IMT and perform echocardiography. Fifty healthy controls (HCs) were recruited to undergo RAI measurement. RAI in patients undergoing PD was significantly higher than the RAI in HCs (86.25%±8.39% vs. 76.05%±9.81%, p < 0.05). Patients undergoing PD and who suffer with diabetic mellitus, hypertension, and CVD had more severe VC than those without the abovementioned diseases. In patients with PD, RAI was positively correlated with AACI (r = 0.671, p < 0.05) and carotid artery IMT (r = 0.596, p < 0.05). RAI was positively correlated with left ventricular end-diastolic dimensions (LVDd; r = 0.678, p < 0.05), left ventricular mass index (r = 0.595, p < 0.05), and negatively correlated with early-diastolic mitral inflow velocity/late-diastolic mitral inflow velocity (r = -0.342, p < 0.05) and left ventricular ejection fraction (r= -0.497, p < 0.05). Multiple linear regression analysis showed that RAI was associated with AACI, LVDd, age, and serum phosphate (p < 0.05). RAI might be an effective predictor of VC and cardiac structural/functional abnormalities in patients undergoing PD.

Effects of seawater acidification and cadmium on the antioxidant defense of flounder Paralichthys olivaceus larvae.

Increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide has led to a decrease in the pH of the ocean, which influences the speciation of heavy metals and consequently affects metal toxicity in marine organisms. To investigate the effects of seawater acidification and metals on the antioxidant defenses of marine fishes, the flounder Paralichthys olivaceus, was continuously exposed to cadmium (Cd; control, 0.01 and 0.15 mg L-1) and acidified seawater (control (pH 8.10), 7.70 and 7.30) for 49 days from embryogenesis to settlement. The results demonstrated that both Cd and acidified seawater could induce oxidative stress and consequently cause lipid peroxidation (LPO) in the larvae. Antioxidants (i.e., superoxide dismutase, SOD; catalase, CAT; reduced glutathione, GSH; glutathione S-transferase, GST; glutathione peroxidase, GPx; and glutathione reductase, GR) functioned to defend the larvae against oxidative damage. Overall, Cd induced (SOD, GST and GSH) or inhibited (CAT and GPx) the enzymatic activities or contents of all the selected antioxidants except for GR. The antioxidants responded differently to seawater acidification, depending on their interaction with the metal. Similarly, the mRNA expressions of the antioxidant-related genes were upregulated (sod, gr and gst) or downregulated (cat and gpx) in response to increasing Cd exposure. Seawater acidification did not necessarily affect all of the biomarkers; in some cases (e.g., SOD and sod, GR and gr), Cd stress may have exceeded and masked the stress from seawater acidification in regulating the antioxidant defense of the larvae. The integrated biomarker response (IBR) was enhanced with increasing levels of the stressors. These findings support the hypothesis that seawater acidification not only directly affects the antioxidant defense in flounder larvae but also interacts with Cd to further regulate this defense. This study has ecological significance for assessing the long-term impacts of ocean acidification and metal pollution on the recruitment of fish populations in the wild.

Antioxidant defenses and immune responses of flounder Paralichthys olivaceus larvae under methylmercury exposure.

Methylmercury (MeHg) is a highly toxic contaminant in coastal environments and poses threats to marine fish in early life stages (ELSs). However, MeHg toxicity to fish embryos and larvae is not well investigated. This study investigated the antioxidant defenses and immune responses of flounder Paralichthys olivaceus larvae exposed to waterborne MeHg (0, 0.1, 1.0 and 10.0 µg L-1) for 35 days, from embryogenesis to settlement. The results revealed that metal accumulation in the larvae was positively correlated with MeHg concentration, reduced larval growth and survival. The activities of catalase and glutathione reductase were significantly increased at 10.0 µg L-1, while glutathione peroxidase activity and lipid peroxidation level were significantly increased at concentrations over 1.0 µg L-1. The corresponding antioxidant-related genes were upregulated under MeHg exposure (cat and gpx at 10.0 µg L-1; gr over 1.0 µg L-1). Lysozyme content was significantly increased, but immunoglobulin M content was significantly decreased at 10.0 µg L-1. The immune-related genes were significantly upregulated (hsp70 at 0.1 and 10.0 µg L-1; lzm and il-1ß over 1.0 µg L-1; tnf-α and il-6 at 10.0 µg L-1) or downregulated (igm, over 0.1 µg L-1). Overall, MeHg exposure induced oxidative stress and caused immunotoxicity at concentrations over 1.0 µg L-1 and 10.0 µg L-1, respectively. The transcription of selected genes correlated with the corresponding biochemical markers in response to MeHg toxicity. These findings improve our knowledge to better understand the mechanisms by which marine fish at ELSs cope with oxidative stress and immunotoxicity induced by MeHg.